COVID-19 income support programs, “I would have been homeless,” she says.Menzies says she’s been through eight months of on-and-off unemployment after her income as a restaurant manager and server dropped to 10 per cent of her usual pay at the start of the pandemic.
Throughout that time, it was only thanks to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and then enhanced Employment Insurance (EI) that she was able to keep a roof over her head and food in the cupboards, she says.